


Surprises are the worst!

by SpicySnowflake



Series: Spicy's Whumptober 2020 [20]
Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Gen, Trans Female Character, Whumptober, Whumptober 2020, femZim, field medicine, transZim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:41:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27119027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpicySnowflake/pseuds/SpicySnowflake
Summary: Invader-in-trainings Purple and Zim were tasked with an assignment. It was supposed to be easy. But unfortunately, things didn't go according to plan.And for the first time in his life, Purple had use for all the medical knowledge he had stored in his brainmeats.
Relationships: Almighty Tallest Purple & Zim
Series: Spicy's Whumptober 2020 [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948723
Kudos: 16





	Surprises are the worst!

**Author's Note:**

> This is my 20th fic for Whumptober! 
> 
> This little fic of mine is part of a bigger story I had created in my head. In this AU, Zim is a trans female irken. There's also something else about her, but I'm not going to reveal it here...

It was thanks to Purple’s insistence, as well as Commander Poki secretly favouring Zim, that the two of them had been paired together for the assignment. A field assignment. Their task was simple: they just had to travel through the planet and retrieve something. They were both confident that they’d be able to complete the assignment with no problem. With Purple’s knowledgeable and strategic mind, and Zim’s ability to come up with unique solutions to weird problems, they would get top marks on the assignment for sure. 

Purple and Zim’s friendship came as a shock to everyone. It was a shock even to Purple and Zim themselves. Purple was a Taller, the second best invader-in-training, and was known to be quite the perfectionist. Zim was the shortest irken in their group, with weird quirks no one knows how or wants to deal with, and whose mind always seemed to drift. 

Purple didn’t care what they thought. Neither did Zim, but she didn’t really care about what anyone thought. It was one thing he learned to admire about her and apply for himself. He still remembered their first conversation that led to this unlikely friendship. 

It was just after he had lost to Red in a spar. While the rest of their comrades went to congratulate Red and kiss up to him, Purple was quietly seething. At the situation, and at himself. _Why was nothing he did good enough?!_

“Hi! I would just like to say that you were incredible out there in the arena!” The loud and high pitched voice snapped Purple out of his anger-induced stupor. It took a while to get his bearings as he stared at the tiny irken who spoke to him. 

“Huh? What are you talking about? I lost,” he grumbled. 

“But you almost won!” she said, throwing her short arms in the air. “If Red hadn’t come up with that new move last minute, you would have definitely won! It was amazing how you came up with counters for all of Red’s attacks!” the short female exclaimed with such gusto, bouncing and waving her hands in the air. “That must have taken a lot of planning. Zim can tell, you know!” 

Purple stared at the smaller, and something in the depths of his spooch started to stir. A more prominent and familiar feeling rose back to the surface, however, and Purple scowled. “Yeah, well, a lot of good that did. Nobody even cares! All they care about is that Red won!”

“Why do you care what others think?” Zim asked. She blinked and tilted her head as she looked up at him, her weirdly curled antennae bouncing in confusion. 

That threw Purple for a loop. “What?” was all he could say in response. 

“Why does it matter? Whether or not you get people’s praise… it doesn’t change who you are, and it doesn’t make you any less amazing at what you do.”

Purple scowled down at her, starting to get frustrated with the smaller’s audacity. “What would you know? You’re just a smaller!”

“...It's true that I’m small, but I’ve always been happy with who I am. It never mattered to me what anyone else thought. Zim doesn’t need to be validated by anyone. I know my own worth.” Zim stated, and for whatever reason, Purple could do nothing but stare at her and absorb her words into his memory. “And I think you should too, because you’re amazing, Purple.” 

Zim took her leave, and Purple’s eyes continued to follow her.

That meeting had intrigued him enough to take more notice of her. It wasn’t long after that, that he invited her to spar. Then to study. Then to hang out in their free time. For someone so tiny, she really was pretty amazing in her own right. She was wonderful in ways he never thought he would ever consider wonderful. It was nice to have a friend like her. He never really cared for interactions with other irkens outside of duty. He still didn’t. But having Zim by his side was a comfort and a pleasure he never thought he wanted, yet was grateful to have.

That eventually led to Purple’s insistence on having Zim as his partner for this assignment. And everything was going well. Until suddenly it wasn’t. 

The snarlbeast came out of nowhere. Purple wasn’t prepared for it. There shouldn’t have been any snarlbeasts on the planet! So he panicked. He could never handle things he wasn’t prepared for. He liked having solid plans for things to come. He didn’t like surprises. So when the snarlbeast attacked, he was completely useless. 

That was when Zim sprung into action and managed to drive the beast away…at the cost of her arms. Her strong, yet surprisingly strong and very capable arms. 

It was all Purple’s fault. His friend was injured because he still couldn’t handle things that he didn’t plan for. _How could he even call himself a Taller with how pathetic he was?_

Then Purple steeled himself. _No._ Those thoughts were useless. And he promised Zim he would stop thinking like that. There was still something he could do. He could treat Zim’s injuries. He had medical supplies in his PAK. It wasn’t standard procedure, but Purple could never get himself to stop having it packed and ready, just in case. 

He knew what he had to do. He had the knowledge etched into his brainmeats just as clearly as it would in his PAK. A long time ago, when he was just a smeet and had not yet been assigned by the Control Brains, he had wanted to become a medic. He had spent so much of his time studying and memorizing, hoping that it would lead to the conclusion that he was meant to be in the Medical Division. Alas, due to his knack for strategy, he was assigned to the Military Division instead. 

For the first time in his life, he had use for the knowledge that he worked so hard to gain. All the medical knowledge that he was forced to discard as useless, he was finally going to use when it counted the most. For the longest time, Purple had bemoaned his wasted effort, but once again, Zim had managed to take his whole worldview and flip it upside down.

This time, she didn’t even try.


End file.
